Preying For a Cause

So, what does the museum signify in this country 8212; is it a religious institution or a secular one?

IN the context of explaining the world8217;s art in museums, I am reminded of a point made by Duncan Cameron that there are two distinct museum-related stances: The traditional one of the museum as a temple, and a newer one of the museum as forum. To India, a country of temples, converting the institution of museum into a temple came naturally.

Let me give you an example. In 1982, a large number of wooden figures of the cult of the Bhuta, deities and spirits of the dead, were brought to the Crafts Museum. These cultic figures were connected with the spirit of the dead and, therefore, none of the museum staff agreed to deal with them. Finally, one staffer accepted the job under government pressure. When he died within a year of starting work, his wife and several employees of the museum assigned the reason for his demise to the wrath of the deities.

When I became the director of the Crafts Museum in 1984, I noticed offerings being made to these and other images displayed in the museum by several employees. Treating exhibits as objects of worship is quite a regular feature in Indian museums. Museums as modern space displaying objects of art and culture hardly ever took root in India as it did in the West. The museum in India remains an unfinished project till date.

Incidents of common people holding museumised objects in reverence in India and elsewhere open up the question of ownership and control of cultural objects in the possession of museums and other exhibitory spaces representing a dominant class vis-a-vis the vulnerable 8216;other8217;, whose objects of worship have been plundered and museumised by the former. Duncan Cameron could not have found a more literal example of the museum adopting the role of a temple than this one.

Of late, the museum in India is increasingly becoming a layered space with resurgent political, social and religious interventions. In 1990, the Director of NM served alcohol on the museum premises to a delegation of visiting Western dignitaries to which the Government took objections on account of a certain rule that prohibits alcohol consumption in parties hosted by it.

The rule holds even today so that the government does not have to incur the expenses. What was amazing here was the protest that came from a group of museum staff who claimed serving alcohol in a space where Hindu deities were displayed violated religious sentiments. This was despite the fact that several Brahmanic and Hindu deities are described in the canonical literature and mythology of the Hindus as given to consumption of intoxicating drinks. At the village level Hinduism, intoxicants are regularly consumed during religious ceremonies. It should also be noted that the majority of Hindu images displayed in the NM belonged to the classical tradition which required that the cultic image be ritually consecrated by an invocation ceremony before installation in a temple and be de-consecrated by another ceremony, when removed from there. A broken image may not be worshipped. An image removed from the place of its original installation and re-installed elsewhere required a fresh ritual of consecration.

Under the circumstances, the Hindu images displayed in the NM were not 8216;living images,8217; but a type deserted by the invoked spirits and therefore not worthy of worship. The museum staffers were in the habit of smoking next to these images. The public irrespective of their caste and creed frequently touched these images. These acts would be considered sacrilegious by the Hindu scripture. Considering these facts, the National Museum8217;s staff objecting to serving alcohol and the Hindu Mahasabha8217;s protest to serving meat in a space where images of Hindu deities were displayed appears to be coloured with politically inspired, resurgent deconstruction of the Hindu ethical ideology, one of the fora of its expression being the museum.

As told to Vidya Shivadas